


The Truth Beneath The Rose

by DramaticHufflepuff



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Mentor Severus Snape, POV Severus Snape, Severus Snape Has a Heart
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-17 17:47:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16979103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DramaticHufflepuff/pseuds/DramaticHufflepuff
Summary: The battle of innocence against desire, of duty against will, and, more profoundly, of right against wrong. Severus Snape is a respected teacher of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, tormented by a regret, he finds himself reliving a tragic story, completely in love with one of his students.





	The Truth Beneath The Rose

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Everyone here knows J.K. Rowling is the owner of HP, thanks heaven she lets us play with her universe and its characters, that's all I'm doing...
> 
> A/N: First and foremost, I must warn you that the Snape you will encounter in this story is devoid of any goodness veil that we may have placed upon him over the years. J.K. Rowling herself has already admitted in several interviews that Severus is not completely good, and anyone who has ever bothered to examine his past and his actions further should agree. So do not expect princely attitudes, and do not be disappointed with what he can come to do. Let's just stick to how far we can understand him and love he still.

Even the strongest men should not go beyond their limits, but that night, he found it impossible to reproach himself for cashing in on the drink. The plan was simple, he would tie himself to the counter of the Hog's Head and force himself to drink whatever was put before him, until his thoughts were clouded enough not to be diverted to green eyes and rosy lips. The situation was calling for casualties, wrong companies and debauchery drowned in pure whiskey, however, as the hours dragged on, it became difficult to argue when the shop owner was a tough woman with Knife and Dagger tattoos on her arms, and threatened to call Professor Dumbledore himself if he did not leave at once. Then, still long hours away from dawn, there was the respectable Professor Severus Snape, sneaking through the streets and alleys of the accursed village, bound to return to his sanctuary at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  
He did not even want to think about what would have to be done to be present in front of his class in the morning, but whether it was the bitterness or the diluted alcohol in his blood, he realized that he did not care. The streets were covered with a winter haze that covered the flowerbeds and hedge around the school gates. _Where is that damn wand?_ He groped the pockets of the heavy coat he wore over his black uniform, a pile of silver fell at his feet, cursing he bent to pick it up. A relatively loud sound to the deafening silence of dawn reached his ears. Someone was crying somewhere in the park behind the hedge. A woman, without a shadow of doubt. He straightened again, his wand in his right hand, propped it carefully on the lock, but refused to open it.  
_What are you doing, you idiot? Get in there._  
Again a groan, followed by a sniff. He cursed and pulled the wand back, stretched it out in front of him and staggered behind the sound. His feet were heavy, as if they were totally disproportionate to his own body, and his head seemed to weigh a ton. Around the property, poles with bewitched lights gleamed like fake fireflies over grass laced with fresh dew. The wooden benches were empty... except for one. Strategically hidden behind an oversized pine tree, a figure hugged her knees sitting alone. The first thing he noticed was her black uniform, the coat embroidered across her chest. Damn, she was a student. This was doubly dangerous, first because it totally blocked his intention to shrug and return where he had come without feeling remorse, as a teacher, those abominable little creatures became his problem, but at the same time, how could he approach that girl without she realizing his shameful state of drunkenness?  
He pondered. To hell with all of this, he was a grown man and owed no satisfaction to anyone. He started to walk toward the girl, his pretty moccasins seemed to protest at the wet grass. What was that jerk doing out of school at that time, anyway? Hogsmeade was not exactly a sanctuary, though many claimed that since the fall of the one-who-must-not-be-named, everything had been quiet, but certainly not reliable enough for a silly young teenager to feel secure in sheltering at parks in the middle of the night. Snape stopped half a foot from where the girl was, but his reprimand died on his parted lips when, seeming to sense his presence, she lifted her head and glanced at a pair of large, bright eyes in his direction.  
The wizard felt his whole body stiffen as his eyes involuntarily found their way to the girl's half-naked body. The uniform had been drastically torn, exposing exorbitant portions of a white nudity, pink lace, and reddish patches that would be purple in the morning. The girl opened her swollen lips to speak, but stopped abruptly as he lifted his large, callused hand in front of her face. He should know who she was, shouldn't he? By age, she must have been a student of the last years, which proved most vehemently that he was a worm for not having the slightest notion of who his students were, which was the least to expect of someone who works in a school for almost fifteen years.  
"Professor Snape, I ..."  
"Shh," he squeezed his eyes tightly, his head suddenly spinning. _Damn, what a beautiful time to be so drunk drunk_. "Be quiet," he ordered.  
A gust of wind hit Snape's face as he opened his eyes, and the girl cringed. In a gesture that attributed the greatest of pities, she tried to protect herself with the rags of her uniform. _Who are you, girl?_ Her brown hair was easy to ignore, but he hated himself for not recognizing those eyes. With a quick movement his coat slid down his long arms, and he leaned over the girl to place the piece around her frail shoulders.  
The color in her cheeks was something impossible to not admire. "Who did this?" He asked, the tone more bitter than he had intended. The way she sighed and rolled her eyes away was the clear sign that she would not say anything even under coercion. _Oh, I could make her speak..._ But what was he thinking, anyway? He shook his head, and spoke in a toneless voice. "Can you walk?"  
She just blinked, he turned and started walking back toward the gates. They popped open with a rusty creak, and Snape waited for the teenager to limp past before closing it with the wand. He looked at her ankle, looked a little swollen in comparison to the other. _Great…_  
"Come here," Snape leaned down in front of her and ran a hand behind her knees. The girl protested, pushing him away, and by the way he staggered and almost fell on a bed of roses, it could be said that she had an unexpected strength, but no, she was too thin to even cause lasting damage in somebody, the lack of coordination was the work of drinking. "I will not hurt you, foolish child," he spat out the words, "I'll help you, you're hurt. You should thank me for not dragg you straight to the Headmaster, despite you modest state of mind."  
She seemed to hesitate, but under the circumstances, he could not blame her. Her pitiful state suggested an attempt on something he could not even conceive, and the offer of help from a man with that appearance and drunkenness sweeping through each pore should sound nothing less than contradictory. Not to mention that, in addition to his Slytherin students and some members of his advanced Potions class, he was not known for being friendly with students. But as she did not protest as he approached again, he took it as an acceptance, and wrapped his hands around her body, pulling her into his lap in a swift motion. The minute he lingered with her in his arms, he convinced himself, was only a test of his ability to balance.  
Then he was walking through the doors of the hall and heading for the dungeons, to the room beside his classroom, which had been his home since accepting the vacancy of Potions teacher. The hallway lights were on, making it easy to find the wand in the pocket of his robes and unlock the door, without having to put the girl on the floor. When the darkness entered it seemed to affect his eyes, Severus moved his wrist and murmured "lumus," a bath of light gushed from the tip of his wand under the meager furniture in the small living room, on the dusty shelves full of books, and on the stained wood floor . He walked to one of the armchairs and rested the girl on it.  
"Professor," she called, but he was already leaving the room, heading toward his kitchen, a path that took no more than five paces.  
"I said be quiet, miss."  
The cupboard under the sink, where he kept some potion ingredients and a red plastic box with sterile material. Being a middle-aged man living alone half his life had led him to have to learn to take care of himself. He wet a cotton towel and went back into the living room. The girl was curled up where he had left her, her confused eyes scanning every inch of the small room.  
A student inside his chambers... _What would Minerva say if she saw her there?_ He crouched in front of the armchair and rested the box on her knees, which gave a startled leap. "It's to take care of your injuries," he explained gravely, and she shook her head. Snape wrapped the wet towel around her ankle, and gave some _dolores remedium_ to the pain, which she drank with a grimace. To take care of the bruises and scratches on her lap, that was another story. Snape found himself perched dangerously on a frail human being, his nervous hands working on the bandages and incessantly aware of the girl's body. Her skin was too white, now all stained with bruises, and that he was wrong, what looked like frustrated attempts to suckle. His finger traced the bone of her collarbone thoughtfully, making her shiver.  
"Who did this to you?" He asked again. She held her breath. "Believe me, you do not want to protect an animal like that." But she was not going to talk, he already knew.  
By the time he had finished with her wounds, he could have sworn he was almost entirely sober. The girl refused to drink the tea he served, but gratefully accepted one of the sleeping cookies on the tray. Sitting at the coffee table in an intimidating way, in front of the young woman while she ate, he rummaged through his mind all his classes of the last years. She was a hufflepuff, she must be among them. Sure enough he had already caught her round eyes staring at him sometime. He wanted to remember... nothing.  
"Uh, professor?" He looked up. She had stopped eating, and suddenly her eyes were filled with tears again, feeling a raw urgency in his stomach, Snape leaned forward.  
"Does it still hurt?" He asked worriedly.  
She denied it vehemently. He gasped in relief.  
"Professor?" His head was throbbing again, why did she keep calling him? Why did he have to be such an idiot as to help her? She was a student, please... She was not _her_ . "Professor Snape..."  
"What is it now?" He almost shouted.  
"I think," she whispered in a shaky voice, "that I may have tainted your coat."  
Snape followed her gaze, the tip of his coat escaping sinfully behind her bare thighs, a dark stain seemed to smile coldly at him. Blood.  
"Damn," he snarled, and it was good to curse anyone.  
The girl blinked her eyes, and her incredibly long lashes deposited a solitary tear on her spotted face. He watched, fascinated as the small drop hesitate in the sharp arc of the apple of her face, before beginning its journey in the fall by the cheek, making a dangerous curve near the chin, and then, helpless, hanging on the end of the abyss that was the line of the her jaw. Snape lifted his finger quickly, and trimmed the small tear before it fell. Unsure of what to do next, and sure that her eyes watched it all, he brought his finger to his mouth, and swallowed her tear, in the poetic hope that that would prevent any other tear from falling that night.  
"You should go back to your dorm." She blinked at him, seeming uncertain to have heard him correctly. Surely wondering why she was not getting a punishment, yet she got up cautiously, testing the weight of her body on the injured ankle. "Try not to put too much weight on it, and make compresses, it should help with the pain," he continued, watching her to the door.  
On the threshold, he looked down the hall, it was empty. The girl squirmed to get out of his coat, but he stopped her putting his hands on her shoulders.  
"No. Take it with you."  
She nodded, and with slow, lame steps she moved back down the corridor, instead of going back inside, the wizard leaned back on the threshold and crossed his arms, his head still aching. Halfway to the entrance of the kitchen, however, she stopped and looked over her shoulders, her big eyes clouded with confusion, she seemed to struggle, but when she opened her lips, she said nothing. Snape, however, knew perfectly well what she meant.  
"You're welcome, Lily" he murmured, and the words echoed in the darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> Despite the incredible writing of J.K. Rowling and her website, Pottermore, which is an inexhaustible source of adjunct knowledge, there is still much about Severus Snape that is up to our imagination to draw. Myself, I like to think of the mysterious and gloomy potions teacher, as a man who, on particularly sad memorial dates, enjoys whiskey and drunk wanders on the streets. I also like the idea of him having a sophisticated taste and wearing moccasins, although this may contradict me with the sloppiness of his chambers. However, Snape can also be a confusing person, in fact, I'm rooting for it.
> 
> Let me know if you know the band that owns the song that gives the story its name. And if by the title of our prologue and the comparison I tried to do, someone can already tell which of the Disney tales inspired this story, although candidly...


End file.
